Trump replaces expiring tariffs with new duties on 60 economies

The temporary tariff was always going to expire. The question was whether Washington would let it go quietly or use the moment to double down. We now have the answer. President Donald Trump’s administration has rolled out a new set of import duties on goods from 60 economies, effective July 24, 2026. The rates sit at either 10% or 12.5%, depending on the trading partner, and they arrived precisely as a temporary 10% global tariff expired on the same date. How this is legally justified The legal foundation here matters, because the administration’s earlier tariff strategy ran into serious trouble in court. A Supreme Court ruling in February 2026 struck down the prior reciprocal tariff framework, which had been the centerpiece of Trump’s first wave of trade measures in this term. That ruling forced the White House to find a different legal hook. They found it in Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. In English: Section 301 allows the executive branch to impose tariffs when it determines that a foreign country’s trade practices are unfair or harmful to U.S. commerce. The administration is specifically citing insufficient enforcement of bans on goods produced with forced labor as the r...